by Karry Sargologos

There were a lot of great ideas on engaging students in more active learning in the classroom presented at the Lilly Conference in January. I have incorporated several into my group discussions and legislative simulations in my government classes this spring with positive results.

One of the simplest ideas is “Think, Pair, Share”. This was demonstrated at the conference by asking questions of the audience, telling them to talk with their neighbors about their answer, then sharing their answers with everyone. It generated a great deal of information and examples from the audience of faculty members, but I was less sure of the results among my students. I started out the semester asking questions in class that received responses from a small number of students, but then I remembered the “Think, Pair, Share” technique and it has worked great. It forces everyone to get involved in thinking about the questions and allows students to interact with each other and learn from the other students. It takes the tension out of one person feeling like they are on the spot for coming up with a correct answer and makes the class more fun. By engaging with the material in an active and enjoyable way, students are much more likely to have a meaningful learning experience. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover this simple way to enhance discussions. I guess that is why it is so useful for faculty to interact and share different teaching methods.

Another presentation I attended that helped me improve the legislative simulation I have designed for my government classes was on “The Rewards of Student-Generated Productions”. While this was about a film students created, I found it especially helpful to talk with the presenters about how role playing could enhance the learning experience. This prompted me to require students to adopt a real-life Senator to play in the legislative simulation and to create short scripts for introducing their bill and offering comments on other bills. It is currently a work in progress, but there is noticeable improvement in the bills they have created and their comments on other students’ bills. I think they are less self-conscious because they can pretend to be someone else and mimicking actual politicians has forced them to learn more about the debate on issues from different perspectives. I probably would still be debating the merits of requiring students to role play real Senators if I hadn’t had the opportunity to interact with faculty members from another school that demonstrated the learning opportunities for students in their classes.

I hope sharing these two ideas from this year’s conference can inspire and motivate others just like the numerous examples presented helped move me to try new ways of facilitating my students’ learning.